He lifted his lids. White walls. Television hanging in the corner. Cheesy striped curtain on his right.
Dammit. A hospital.
Did he get shot or something?
He reached inside himself, seeking the warmth he’d grown to depend on more than the air he breathed, but his search came up empty.
Dak?
The rest of the room came into focus. Tracy sat beside him, reading a book.
Her gaze darted to him, her novel slipping to the floor. “John!”
She threw her arms around his shoulders. He tried to return her affection, but his limbs wouldn’t move. Leather bands buckled his arms and legs to the side rails. What the hell?
Tracy covered his cheeks with tear-filled kisses. Whatever put him in that hospital bed must have been pretty bad.
“You’re okay,” Tracy said, wiping her own tears from his cheeks. “You’re really okay.”
John shifted his weight. A dull ache gnashed through his back. “I guess.” He smiled, his gaze drifting over her eyes, her lips, and the tiny indent in her brow that appeared whenever she was worried. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?” His heart trembled within his chest. For a moment he thought it was Dak, but the quake wasn’t followed by one of his friend’s snarky comments. Where was he?
Agent Green pushed the curtain aside. A red patch tainted the white in his right eye, and the faded yellow edge of a bruise marred the same side of his head and face. “Well hello there, partner. How are you feeling?”
John shrugged. “Like I was hit by a truck.” John mustered half a smile. “Was I?”
Green didn’t return the grin. “Can you tell me your name?”
John blinked, glancing at the bindings around his arms. What was going on? “Peters. Detective John Peters. You wanna tell me why I’m tied up, kid?”
The agent stared at him for a moment. His nose twitched and he swallowed, looking away. He nodded to Tracy, tapping her shoulder as he left. Why were they acting so weird?
“Thanks, Alex,” Tracy said.
When did they end up on a first-name basis? John raised an eyebrow. “Alex?”
“He’s been sitting beside me for almost three weeks. Did you expect me to keep calling him Agent Green?” Tracy settled on the edge of the bed. “Art Commings was here, too. He felt guilty for not being there to help when…you know.”
A small spot in his chest twisted. “No, I don’t know.”
The last time he’d seen Art, his father was in the hospital. John and Agent Green were working on the murder investigation. That had been three weeks ago?
Tracy’s eyes darted to the floor. “How much do you remember?”
He yanked against the bindings. Why hadn’t Green removed the ties when John told him his name? “I guess I’m not remembering a lot.” He leaned back his head. Dak, help me out, buddy. What’s going on?
Something tickled inside him, reaching out with a soothing motion. The sensation warmed him slightly, a sensation both familiar, yet completely foreign.
John’s jaw clenched. “Something’s wrong with Dak.” His chest fluttered. “Jesus, something’s wrong with Dak!” The bed creaked as he pulled against the bars. “Someone, get us some help!”
Tears streaked down Tracy’s cheeks, dripping from her chin as she stood.
What was wrong? What had happened?
“I’m so sorry, John. I can’t even imagine…” She turned away, hugging her shoulders as she looked out the window.
A vision of her tied up, hanging from a wall flashed through his mind. The agony of his own arms wrenched over his head echoed through his shoulders. The pain, the…
Sean. It had been Sean all along.
The night flooded back to him. The fighting, the screams, the blood—the anguish of having his best friend yanked from his body.
John stiffened.
Sean had taken him—dragged Dak out, ripped him from the protection of John’s body and the security of John’s lungs.
A cloudy vision of Dak’s body shattering on the tiles replayed in his mind. A succession of horror and helplessness as he reached out to catch his falling friend. Each echo cut a hole deeper into John’s heart, as if he were being stabbed repeatedly with a butcher’s knife.
The muscles in John’s arms tightened. His jaw clamped shut.
Like being stabbed repeatedly with a butcher’s knife.
His gaze fell on Tracy as she turned from the window. Her eyes. So beautiful, yet they had been hollow. Horrid. Ugly.
“You stabbed me.”
She shook her head, easing into the chair beside him. “No. It wasn’t me.”
John knew it wasn’t, but it was still her body, her face he stared into while Adonna plunged the knife through his chest. He clenched his fists. “Did they pull that bitch out of you?”
Tracy’s hands dropped to her lap as she lowered her eyes. She wiped her nose before returning her gaze to John. “No. They didn’t.”
“What?”
“She’s not considered a threat.”
John sat up as much as the bindings allowed. “Not a threat? The bitch nearly stabbed me to death.”
“She wasn’t trying to kill you.”
“Yeah, well, the blade told me otherwise.” He shifted toward the curtain. “Green! Green, get your ass in here. Tracy needs an extraction. Now.”
She touched his shoulder. “I’m fine, John.”
“Like shit you’re fine. She pushed you out. She gave herself to Sean and they stabbed me.” John closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Sean’s cackle echoed through his mind. “God, that laugh, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”
He bit the inside of his cheek, but it did little to control the shiver that ran through his veins. Fresh tears dampened Tracy’s cheeks.
“Shit, Tracy, what happened? How’d you get out of there?”
John’s stomach fluttered and fizzed. He’d first felt that strange sensation about five years ago, when he woke up from being shot—tied to a hospital bed—with federal agents asking if he knew his name. The warmth trickled from his face. “Adonna did kill me, didn’t she?” Each nod of Tracy’s head throttled him like a sledgehammer. “There’s another one inside me.”
She continued to nod. “His name is Jace.”
John’s muscles began to shake. His legs rattled the bars around the bed. “You know its name? How the hell do you know its name?”
Tracy rubbed her hands across her face. “Adonna killed Sean.”
What? John flopped back onto the pillows. “I don’t understand.”
“Adonna seduced Sean to get contact, so she and Jace could come up with a plan. She was originally going to kill Sean so Jace could jump into Agent Green.”
John glanced at the curtain. “But Green is still alive.”
Tracy nodded. “That’s why Adonna had to improvise.”
“By killing me?”
Her lips thinned as she nodded. “Dak was already gone. She made a flash decision. I’m not saying it was a good one—”
“She killed me!”
“Because she was going to kill Sean. She needed somewhere for Jace to go. She thought it would make us happy.”
“Happy? Are you out of your mind?”
Tracy rubbed her face. “I’ve had a few weeks for all this to sink in. I was pretty upset at first, too, but—”
“Upset at first? She killed me. You should have had that bitch extracted the first chance you got.”
“She never wanted you dead, John.”
John threw his weight against the bindings. The entire bed shifted toward Tracy. “How can you say that? I watched her plunge the knife into my chest over and over. And, dammit, I had to look into your eyes the entire time.” And, God, the coldness in that expression, the absence of emotion inside eyes he’d gazed into for warmth, for refuge. “I watched you kill me, Tracy. Not that psycho alien bitch—you.” He closed his eyes, trying to ward off the memory. “I had to watch the woman I love cut my freaking
heart out.”
She stuttered over a sob. “It wasn’t me.”
“No. It wasn’t. That’s why she has to go.”
Tracy reached for him, but he drew back.
Those hands had been covered in blood. His blood. She needed to understand that they could never be together until that thing inside her was gone.
She lowered her hand, steadying herself. “Adonna feels my emotions. She knew I loved you. This was a way for all of us to be together.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Jace is her mate. That’s why she was so drawn to Sean.” She leaned toward him, folding her hands. “They lost each other years ago when their hosts were killed in a car crash. They’ve been jumping closer and closer ever since, hoping to find each other again. She wasn’t strong enough to explain before.”
“I guess she’s talking now.”
Tracy nodded. “She’s explained everything. I don’t agree with what she did, but I understand.”
John clenched his fists. “You understand. Well, that’s just ripe.”
Tracy straightened, but not with any real conviction. “Adonna asks that you give Jace a chance. She thinks you’ll learn to love him as much as she does.”
John closed his eyes. Nothing flowed through him. No strange voice echoed through his mind. No one reached to him from within his being. No one consoled him, or kicked him for being stubborn. He was alone.
But maybe not for long. One day this Ambient, Jace, would be strong enough to talk. And then what? Take Dak’s place?
His hands shook on the rails beside his mattress. “I don’t want this. I can’t. I can’t have another one inside me.” He swallowed hard. “Green! Green, get in here.”
The kid leaned around the curtain in less than a second. Had he been on the other side, waiting?
“Take it out of me,” John said. “I’m not going to ruin Dak’s memory by being a convenient host for another one.”
Green’s gaze hit the floor. “That’s not really a valid reason for an extraction.”
John’s hands shook. “This thing was helping Sean. The psycho admitted it.”
“He was being tortured,” Tracy said. “He never hurt anyone. He just made Sean stronger.”
“Stop it!” John lurched toward her. The bedrails rattled. “You may be happy harboring a murderer but I’m not. This thing could have stopped Sean. He could have saved Dak but he didn’t.”
“He couldn’t.” Tears welled in Tracy’s lashes. “Sean was too strong. Like you told me, Dak couldn’t control you when you were angry. Sean was always angry.”
John pushed back against the pillow. His gaze focused on the yellow stains in the ceiling tiles. “Take it out of me, Green. You know there’s just cause.”
The kid reached around the curtain and returned with a silver cylinder.
Tracy stood. “No. You can’t kill Jace. He didn’t do anything.”
“I didn’t do anything to deserve this, either,” John whispered.
Green held up his hand. “I can extract the entity and then let it go. There’s a real hospital ten minutes away. It shouldn’t have a hard time finding another host.”
“But we don’t want another host,” Tracy said. “And John’s not completely healed. He could die.”
“Then let me die.” John’s own words sent a shudder down his spine because he meant it. He couldn’t live like this. Empty. Alone.
Dak would have been here for him, talked him through this. Guided him. How could he even force himself awake each morning without him?
“Tracy has a point.” Green lowered the cylinder. “You might still need the entity to survive.”
“I don’t care. Do it.”
It wasn’t fair. They’d allowed another entity in without his permission. They didn’t have the right, but John did. He didn’t have to live with their decision.
Green turned the lower dial and the light on the tip of the extractor began to glow. He’d keep his eyes open. Make it easy. Hopefully this Jace person wouldn’t put up a fight.
Jace person… He didn’t have a body, so it wasn’t a person. Just some sort of parasite. A liquidy gas that couldn’t even live without a real person’s help.
Tracy’s voice begging him to stop faded into a haze as the light turned orange. It didn’t matter. This thing wasn’t human. It shouldn’t even be on this planet. John’s chest began to tingle.
Was Dak a parasite?
No. Of course not. He loved old movies and broccoli. He had an odd sense of humor. And boy did he love to touch. More than all that, he loved John. Dak would have done anything to make John happy. Even give up the chance at his own happiness when John had fallen for Tracy.
His lungs began to burn. The alien inside him convulsed as the light seared through John’s pupils. The horror of Dak’s extraction flared through him. Had Dak been in as much pain as John was? Did he know he was going to die? Was he afraid?
Was this new alien afraid? Did he feel guilty about what he’d done, or was he really under Sean’s control? Was he decent—nice like Dak, but lost, crushed under the thumb of a psychopath?
A rolling ooze moved through John’s chest. He missed Dak, but did that give him the right to discount another life? What would this do to his relationship with Tracy? Would Adonna ever forgive him? Not that John cared, but Tracy did. She had to live with the entity inside her twenty-four seven.
This Jace could never replace Dak, but who says he couldn’t find a place in John’s life? And how great would that be to have Tracy and a bond between the entities inside them? A haze appeared in front of John’s face. The alien hadn’t put up a fight. The last tendril holding to John’s lungs released.
“Wait.” John held up a hand. “Stop. Turn it off.”
Green furrowed his brow and clicked the lower dial. The essence slammed back through John’s eyes with dizzying intensity. A stabbing jolt seared his left then right lung as the alien latched on.
Tracy held her hands to her temples. Her eyes shone with tears.
John stared at them. Adonna hadn’t taken control. She could have pushed Tracy down deep into her psyche and yanked that extractor out of Green’s hands like snatching a lollypop from a toddler. The Ambient had stood there and watched as her mate was pulled from the man she purposely put him into. Interesting.
Green lowered the extractor and folded his arms.
John clutched the cool bedrails.
Silence lingered as if someone had paused time.
Is that what he’d done, paused time, postponed the inevitable?
Blood coursed through John’s temples. Why didn’t he let Green finish? Why did he let the Ambient slip back into his body?
Dak.
Five years ago, waking up and finding out about Dak had terrified him. Left him in a world of uncertainty. But uncertainty had grown to something stronger than John could ever have anticipated. The relationship he’d forged with his entity had been the best thing to ever happen to him.
Dak shouldn’t have died. But there was nothing John could do to change that. Dak had given John an incredible gift: a second chance.
He would have wanted John to do the same for someone else.
“M-maybe we should leave it inside for a bit. Let’s make sure I’m completely healed, first.”
Tracy sprang to life, falling on John and crying into his shoulder. Her warmth spread through him, filling the voids left by the untimely death of his best friend.
Life continued.
No one said moving on without Dak would be easy, but his friend’s life was worth living for, if only so someone could remember who Dak was, and what they meant to each other.
68
Two Weeks Later
Tracy stared at John’s front door. If he were anyone else, she would have walked away by now. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
The police psychiatrist warned her that John would have good, as well as bad, days. His mood swings had been wild, maybe due to the st
ress of losing Dak, or his body assimilating to a new entity. She’d stand by him, though, no matter what.
Even if he didn’t want her anymore, she still owed him her life. None of this would have happened if John hadn’t tried to save her.
The door opened as she approached. Alex stepped out. The bruise on the side of his head had finally faded, leaving only the red stain in his eye as a constant reminder that they all nearly died on the whim of a killer.
“How’s he doing?” she asked.
The agent shrugged. “Hard to tell. He’s talking more today. That’s a step in the right direction.”
She gave him a kiss on the cheek as she slid through the door. John waited for her in the foyer, his arms folded.
“Did you know I was here?”
John didn’t look up from the floor. “I felt a little tug in my chest. Figured you were close by.”
Tracy hung her jacket on a hook beside the door. “So Jace is moving around more?”
“Only when you visit.”
“It’s been over a month. He should be talking by now.”
John looked up. “I seem to remember telling you the same thing.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. Tracy followed as he walked toward the kitchen. “I’m not used to being alone. It’s starting to drive me insane.” He leaned against the countertop. “I appreciate you guys coming to stay with me all the time, but it’s not the same as having someone always babbling in my head.”
Tracy ran her fingers along the side of his face. His cheeks had sunken in. If only he’d eat more. “You’re not even getting emotions from him? Nothing at all?”
He shook his head. “It’s my fault. I’m trying hard to accept having another entity, but he knows deep down that I resent him for what happened to Dak. I can’t help it.” He tapped twice on a pile of unopened mail. “If he’d talk to me, we might be able to get somewhere.”
*Let me try.*
“Adonna is offering to see if he’ll talk to her.” Tracy reached out her hand. “Do you mind?”
John offered his palm and she grasped it.
A slight itchy sensation tingled her skin before Adonna skidded through their touch and into John. With a sudden pop, the entity ebbed back almost before she’d entered. Adonna trembled.
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